Background

In 2009, the Center for Lao Studies (CLS) launched the Lao Oral History Archive (LOHA) project to document the untold
stories of Lao refugees in the U.S. through audio and video media. The LOHA project team interviewed over 20 families
of varying ethnicities in the San Francisco Bay Area, CA and Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN and captured the stories of their
journeys from life in Laos, to experiences in “reeducation” and refugee camps, to relocation and settlement in the
United States.

With the generous support of the California Council for the Humanities, the Minnesota Historical Society, the Lao
Assistance Center of Minnesota, and the Asian Pacific Endowment, CLS was able to record the interviews and create an
on-line archive for them along with related photos and historical documents (www.laostudies.org/loha), which has
served as a valuable resource for scholars and community members throughout the world.

In 2013, with a community grant from the City of San Pablo, California, CLS created a mixed media and photographic
installation entitled “Refugees Among Us,” displayed at the San Pablo Art Gallery. The exhibit included artifacts, photos,
documents, and a collection of videos of first-person narratives by multi-ethnic Lao Americans recounting their
experiences.

The warm reception of both the San Pablo exhibit and LOHA itself led CLS to develop the current project, Between Two
Worlds: Untold Stories of Refugees from Laos (B2W), which will further develop these themes and provide a multi-
layered, interactive experience for exhibit participants.

Project Team

Alicia Akins

Exhibit Coordinator

Steve Arounsack

Project Co-Director

Amy Chanthaphavong

San Diego Project Coordinator

Bounlieng Phommasouvanh

Community Advisor

Sally Phonthachack

General Project Coordinator

Dale Thongmahavong Phouvilay

Graphic designer

Prany Sananikone

Content Advisor

Alisak Sanavongsay

Website Technical Director

Nor Sanavongsay

Interactive Web / User Interface Designer

Todd Sanchioni

Photographer / Videographer

Phoumy Sayavong

Project Evaluator

Joanne Sengxay

Redding Project Coordinator

Christine Su

Researcher / Editor

Vinya Sysamouth

Project Co-Director

Ryan Wolfson-Ford

Curriculum Development Specialist

Curriculum

These lesson plans are intended to provide high school teachers with the materials necessary to teach about U.S. involvement in Laos during the Vietnam War and the unique story of refugees from Laos who became Lao American. There are very few resources available to teach this content, but it might be useful to first consider why it is important to teach this content.

The significance of the Vietnam War is widely recognized, but the history of U.S. involvement in Laos (the so-called ‘Secret War’) remains poorly known even though the conflict was pivotal to the course of history in both countries. The failure of the U.S. and its Lao allies to halt communist movement along the Ho Chi Minh trail not only doomed the U.S. defense of South Vietnam but also drew the Lao state into the wider conflict and drove the U.S. bombing campaign in the country. Despite its long neglect, the war in Laos is part of the American story. Because most Americans remain unaware of these events they know less about their own history and that of their neighbors who were resettled from Laos or are of Lao, Hmong, Mien, Khmu or other heritage.

Refugees who resettled to America after war have a unique vantage point on the conflict. Their lives were forever altered by the course of the war that came to their ancestral homes and ultimately took them to their new home in America. The lesson content provided here is intended not just for those teaching in a community with refugee families but is for any teacher and classroom across the country. More than any other, the refugee puts a human face on the war.

The main objective of these lesson plans is to provide teachers with all the materials and content necessary to teach about the poorly known US intervention in Laos during the Vietnam War and about Lao, Hmong, Mien and Khmu refugees who resettled to America after the war. There are two sample lesson plans to provide possible approaches to teach the material in an engaging and meaningful way for students.

Exhibits

Themes

Between Two Worlds will present and juxtapose these crucial stages of refugees from Laos and multi-ethnic Lao
American history through the representation of four homes. As they move physically and symbolically through each,
visitors will be asked to contemplate ideas of “home” as seen through the eyes of people for whom the notion is
precarious, and for those who have lived or are still living “between two worlds.” The exhibit highlights the ways in
which the refugees from Laos migration exerted pressure on cultural norms, and how survival involved both radical loss
and creative adaptation:

Multimedia

Get Involved

More information coming soon.

Contact

For more information or to support the Between Two Worlds project, please contact:
Center for Lao Studies
405 Grand Ave., Suite 202
South San Francisco, CA 94080
Tel: (415) 874-5578
Email: B2W@laostudies.org
Web: www.laostudies.org/B2W

Center for Lao Studies

405 Grand Ave., Suite 202South San Francisco, CA 94080

Around the Web

About CLS

The Center for Lao Studies, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, was formed in 2006 after the First International Conference on Lao Studies in response to the overwhelming interest in Lao Studies.